


Haunted by the past?

by Enjolras1832



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil
Genre: Gen, I guess that we can excuse him for being twitchy because of it?, jehan writes angry poetry, kink meme fill, marius is a little odd, not that I actually have any, poor guy's being haunted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-22 04:19:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/908846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enjolras1832/pseuds/Enjolras1832
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for the Kink Meme Prompt (round 5, page 18)</p>
<p>"In order to honor his dead friends, Marius names his sons Napoleon Enjolras Pontmercy, Napoleon Combeferre Pontmercy, Napoleon Courfeyrac Pontmercy, Napoleon Prouvaire Pontmercy, Napoleon Joly Pontmercy, Napoleon Legles Pontmercy, Napoleon Feuilly Pontmercy, Napoleon Bahorel Pontmercy, and Grantaire Pontmercy.</p>
<p>As a result, they come back as ghosts and haunt the living hell out of him."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haunted by the past?

Marius had been twitchy lately.

Honestly, Cosette had no idea what exactly that was about. It had been weeks since the… _incident_ involving Marius, their daughter Grantaire, paint and the cat. While she had no idea how Marius had thought that _that_ had been a good idea, the cat had long since stopped hissing and glaring at his very appearance, and their other sons had found other things that were more amusing to talk about since then.

She had been watching him since she had gotten home from her outing with her father, and had decided to see if he could find out what exactly it was that had her husband so twitchy. So far, she had heard a couple of thumps and knocks, not that that was odd for the large old house that they lived in, not to mention their 9 children, but Marius did not seem to find it that normal, jumping at least a foot each time and looking around rapidly and becoming twitchy for a couple of minutes directly following the noise before calming down.

Marginally.

Watching her husband jump almost a foot in the air with another bang, she rolled her eyes and decided that it was time for her to find out what exactly this was about. Walking up to his chair she made sure that he could see her so as not to make him jump anymore than he already had.

“Dear.” She started softly, putting her hand softly on his shoulder. When he twitched despite the warning, she couldn’t help the frown that crossed her face and noticed that Marius looked guilty at that. Sighing, she removed her hand from his shoulder and instead placed it on her hip. “What on earth is the matter with you?”

Marius looked at her nervously, his left eye twitching as though seeing something that she could not see out of the corner of his eye before giving her a quick fake smile. “Nothing darling. Why would you think that something is the matter?”

She raised an eyebrow at him, and again he looked momentarily guilty. “Other than your newfound habit of jumping with any sound? Marius,” she said slowly, “you do realize that raising 8 sons and a daughter will cause noise throughout the house, regardless of how old they are? Especially since we called them after your rather…spirited friends. It still surprises me that Enjolras…”

“Napoleon,” Marius interrupted. “Napoleon Enjolras.” Cosette rolled her eyes and wondered why she ever thought that Marius was even kind of normal.

“Fine then. It still surprises me that _Napoleon_ Enjolras has not started another Revolution, what with his…”

“Shhh!” Marius was suddenly saying, waving his arms around frantically, a wild, mildly panicked look in his eyes. And then he fell silent. Cosette cocked her head, wondering if maybe there would be an explanation to all of this found in the sudden silence.

To her extreme surprise {there was no surprise at all really, but she was trying to give her husband the benefit of the doubt} no answer was found.

***

Marius, for his part was hoping that no longer talking about this would stop them. Of course, he should’ve realized that there was no way that he could stop them. Looking up, he was less than surprised to find Enjolras, Bahorel, Grantaire and Combeferre standing in his living room. It was only the presence of Cosette that kept him from squeaking {he would never admit that he had squeaked a bit}.

Enjolras was, of course, at the forefront, his arms crossed over his chest, a blank look on his face, while Bahorel glared menacingly from just behind Enjolras. Combeferre was simply looking at him as though he wanted to dissect him {it was making Marius more than just a little uncomfortable, and he squirmed a bit in his seat} and Grantaire was drinking from what looked like one of the more expensive bottles stored in the cellar.

Or one of the more expensive bottles that _had_ been stored in the cellar.

“Your son’s work for the poor is, of course, exceptional. Nonetheless, you of course have to make sure that Cosette doesn’t forget the travesty that you have changed my…” Enjolras started.

“Our.” Bahorel muttered unhappily.

“Our,” Enjolras amended with a nod in Bahorels’ direction “names into.”

“Apollo,” Grantaire interrupted with a bit of a slur and a grand hand movement that had him spilling wine on the carpet, “was your _distinctly male name_ changed into that of an, admittedly witty, female? No, I hadn’t thought so.” Enjolras looked at Grantaire contemplating for a moment, before turning back to Marius.

“We’ve discussed this before of course, but is there any particular reason that you decided to add my name, and those of our comrades to the name of that…tyrant?” Marius simply whimpered again, as he felt the ice chill in Enjolras’ tone. Combeferre approached Enjolras and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Come on, let’s get back to the others. He has obviously not gotten any smarter with the years—Cosette is a saint for having dealt with him for this long.” As Enjolras and the others were making there way out {Grantaire and Bahorel taking care to make as much noise as possible} Combeferre suddenly turned back to Marius.

“Oh, and by the way, Jehan is still very angry with you and is currently writing angry Haikus about you.” Marius whimpered, drawing his knees up to his chest.

Forget Cosette being there: Jehan’s angry Haikus were _scary_.

***

Eyebrows raised, Cosette watched as her husband’s eyes watched something she could not see and seemed terrified by whatever it was. As he wrapped his arms around his knees, she knew that she had to get to the truth.

“Marius, dear,” she said softly, gently kneeling down beside him and running her hand down her face until he uncurled and looked at her directly. “Are you willing to tell me what’s going on now?” She watched him hesitate, until eventually he nodded. His eyes seemed to check the room, before resting on her for a couple of moments, and then checking the room again.

“Cosette, have you…” he hesitated for a moment, before gathering his courage and continuing “have you ever noticed that there are loud, angry bangs even when Napoleon and Grantaire aren’t home?” Ignoring his wife’s eye roll and muttering about their sons having more names than just Napoleon, that and that there were _8 of them_ , he bravely continued on. “Have you ever noticed that there are poems that we have never seen written that appear, angrily besmirching our names? Have you ever noticed…

Have you ever noticed that the rum is always gone? Why is the rum always gone? And all of the other alcohol in the house for that matter? Cosette…” he hesitated again, this time to turn to look directly at his wife, grabbing her shoulders and looking her directly in the eyes.

“I am being haunted by the souls of my old friends whom were lost upon the barricades.”

For a moment, Marius was sure that Cosette was going to understand, and maybe, just maybe, she knew of someway to end this nightmare.

And then Cosette started laughing.

Soon she was laughing so hard that she was bent over, and Marius pulled back as though burned, staring at her in horror. Finally, she stopped laughing and looked at him, mirth shinning through in her eyes.

“Marius…it’s an old house. Of _course_ there’s going to be noises, and its not only us that live here: your grandfather, your aunt and all of the servants…The poems,” here Cosette had to stop as she giggled a little bit, “ I suspect are the boys and Grantaire taking their anger out on you when you do something particularly…something that they don’t agree with, dear. And they’re talented, so I can see why you would think that maybe its something written by one of your friends, but dear, its simply not so. Marius, we don’t even have rum in the house. Wherever did you get that idea? Dear,” and here she gently pat his cheek, “I think that you’re reading too much into things that you haven’t thought about clearly.”

She got up to leave, amused, knowing that her husband would be okay as soon as the Anniversary of the barricade ended—he always got peculiar around this time of year, though she had to admit that seeing his friends was a first.

“But why would they come back to haunt me?” Marius questioned, sounding confused and small and she smiled at him gently over her shoulder, before turning back to him.

“I don’t know dear, but you don’t you think that you should talk to Courfeyrac about…”

“Napoleon.”

“His new girlfriend? Or to Joly about…”

“Napoleon.”

“His newest interest in medicine? Or to Feuilly about…”

“Napoleon.”

Cosette threw her hands up in the air.

“I think I know why your friends are haunting you.” She shared, shaking her head and looking at the ceiling in exasperation. Marius’ eyes widened before he jumped from his chair and hurled himself at her.

“You do?” he asked, his eyes full of wonder.

“Yes Marius. It may have something to do with you naming all of our sons Napoleon. You’ve always told me how much Enjolras…”

“Napoleon.”

“No dear, the other one—the original Enjolras. How Enjolras didn’t have much fondness for Napoleon…perhaps it has something to do with that?” Marius’ eyes widened.

“You really think that it has something to do with that?” Marius asked, surprise evident in his tone.

“Ding ding ding, we have a winner.” Courfeyrac intoned dryly, Marius’ eyes suddenly swivelling to meet his own—they were back—as Courfeyrac rolled his eyes at the look of sheer surprise on Marius’ face.

“And besides,” Cosette continued, as she turned back around and continued to walk, throwing her words back over her shoulder, “What on earth possessed you to name our little girl Grantaire? Or rather,” she said again, contemplating with a wry smile, “what possessed me to think you were capable of naming our children?” And with that she was gone.

Marius gapped at her back, before rushing after her, his words fading as he rounded the corner out of the room at continued into the distance. “Cosette, whatever do you mean? I thought you loved the names we choose…”

“Smart girl. I always liked her.” Grantaire slurred, ignoring the odd look that Enjolras gave him.

“Grantaire,” Legles murmured softly, “You never knew her.” Grantaire snorted.

“’Course I did. Well, not really… but that’s details. Not important details!” he proclaimed, waving his hands about drunkenly. Enjolras rolled his eyes.

“And I’m alive, so alive.” He sighed. Looking around at his comrades, including Jehan who was still working furiously on his haiku {Enjolras shivered at the very idea and was very _very_ glad that they were not directed at him}. “Come on, I’m sure that there is something else that we could be doing that is not hanging out in Marius’ living room.”

There was a pregnant pause.

“Shall we follow him then?”

Another pause.

“Sure, why not?”

 

[After they had gone to find Marius, Éponine once again found herself singing “On My Own” while being simultaneously happy that Marius hadn’t also tried to commemorate her in some way.]

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is a little odd, but it kind of popped into my head when I seen the prompt and I'm afraid that I had to. Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it!
> 
> Feedback is much appreciated!


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